Lydia Wagenknecht is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged researcher and educator based in Boulder, Colorado, USA. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder and an affiliate faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she teaches courses such as Music and Space, Musics of Latin America, and History of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Her teaching is grounded in culturally responsive, bilingual (English/Spanish) pedagogy and emphasizes collaborative, place-based learning that connects students to the communities and environments they inhabit. Across her classrooms, she integrates approaches from ethnomusicology, environmental humanities, and gender studies, with a focus on helping students critically engage with systems of power and representation through music.

Wagenknecht’s research sits at the intersection of sound, climate change, and territory, with a regional focus on southern Chile, Antarctica, and the U.S. Mountain West. Her dissertation, Conciencias Antárticas: Sound, Climate, and Territory in Chilean Patagonia, examines how musicians and more-than-human actors in Punta Arenas interpret and respond to environmental change through sound. Her work is supported by major international fellowships, including the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship. During her time in Chile, she was hosted by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Universidad de Magallanes, where she conducted fieldwork, facilitated workshops, and collaborated with local educators, artists, and cultural organizations.

Her scholarship engages questions of acoustic ecology, ecofeminism, and decolonial praxis, and has been recognized with awards from organizations such as the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Society for American Music, and the Music Studies and Anthropocene Research Network. In addition to publications in peer-reviewed journals such as Resonancias and Studies in Psychology: Estudios de Psicología, her work appears in forthcoming edited volumes with Duke University Press and Routledge. She has presented her work at national and international conferences including the Society for Ethnomusicology, the World Congress of Environmental History, and the International Committee on Traditional Music and Dance. She has also given invited talks in universities and community organizations across Chile and the US, including a keynote at the I Congreso Internacional de Buenas Prácticas en Educación de Artes at the Universidad de Magallanes. 

A defining feature of Wagenknecht’s work is her long-term commitment to community-engaged research and public scholarship. As a researcher with the NEH-funded project Soundscapes of the People: A Musical Ethnography of Pueblo, Colorado, she spent five years collaborating with K–12 educators, musicians, and cultural institutions to document local musical histories and co-develop open-access, interdisciplinary curriculum. In this role, she conducted oral history interviews, managed educator workshops, and led the development of curricular materials grounded in community knowledge. 

Her broader public-facing work includes serving as Communications and Events Manager for the Indigenous Documentaries and Land Struggle project, where she coordinates programming, facilitates workshops, and supports collaborations with Indigenous filmmakers and activists. She has also organized and moderated events such as Celebrating the Indigenous Americas Week at CU Boulder and led workshops on topics ranging from Indigenous filmmaking to play-based teaching practices.

In addition to her research and teaching, Wagenknecht has held multiple leadership and service roles within academic and professional communities. She has served as Lead Graduate Instructor at CU Boulder, mentoring graduate instructors in inclusive pedagogy, and as Student Relations Officer and ecomusicology editor for Rising Voices in Ethnomusicology, where she supported an international network of early-career scholars. 

Wagenknecht holds a PhD in Music (Ethnomusicology/Musicology) from the University of Colorado Boulder, and she holds a BA in Wide-Range Music Education (Choral and General Music) from Wisconsin Lutheran College. In her free time, she enjoys running, reading, and dancing around the house with her dog, Pancake.